Comment by cawfee

And if you're a complete bastard, you can keep using the Needler on him even after he confessed for some more dialogue lines.

Comment by cece

The Imprisoned Beryl Sorcerer is just beside the questgiver sitting in a chair. Simply find/use Neural Needler, provided upon accepting the quest, five times and the quest will complete.

Dialogue:

Pathetic fool! A servant of malygos would sooner die than aid an emeny...

Aargh! Do your worst, <class>! I'll tell you NOTHING!

Aahhhh! Release me! I am of no use to you. I swear it!

Stop! I beg you, pleae stop. Please....

(Quest Completion) -- Alright! I am beaten. Your previous archmage is held in a prison, elevated and sealed. Even if you manage to reach her, Salrand herself holds the key. Your mission is folly!

I've given you the information, <Race>! You're wasting your time....

Noooo! This tortue is inhumane! You have what you want... why don't you just kill me?

Comment by ohashi

Using a device that "Inflicts pain... but does no permanent damage" bothers you people, but it doesn't bother you to kill HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people/animals/demons/whatever to get to this point in the game. It's a game, get over it or go play some mindless first person shooter with no story if you want your violence to be an end, not a means.

Comment by ohashi

I also can't help but laugh at the hypocrisy of WoW players when it comes to treatment of prisoners. Everyone complains about this quest but I haven't heard a peep about this one which is the one I believe you were referring to when you said

Even a gnome in Wintergarde Keep has you murder a Vykul prisoner of war in his own jail cell while a dozen soldiers are entertained by his slow grisly demise. I think you'll like my response to that quest :P

Comment by NeilAU

The quest is offensive because it implies that torture is effective.

Violence in wow can generally be placed under two categories that of:

Gratuitous violence: senseless, cathartic violence with no inherent gain such as killing critters, random beasts and random acts of violence. The game or quest does not imply there is any inherent reason for doing this you just want to do it.

Violence for strategic advantage: your side has told you to bomb, attack, murder the other side because you are at war with them and they have something you want or are going to do something to you or the people you care about. You are at war with them and if you don’t attack them, destroy their ships, wagons, supply chains it will be used on you or your lot.

Gratuitous violence in wow I do not find objectionable as there does not appear to be a subtext implying that such acts in the real world are ok.

However it is important to point out most violence in wow in particularly narrative/quest/story driven violence tends to be justified in some sort of ethical framework implying that if you do not go kill the infestation of boar/undead/demons/ect like the nice man with the question mark above his head is telling you to do people you care about will suffer.

The real world implications of content like this being in games is that without some sort of moral counter point such as the information being incorrect or the wizard asking you to do it being evil in some way it is implying that torture is ok.

I would not mind if the Scarlet Crusade asked my character to do such an act as the game has already established that this group is morally questionable and would serve as an appropriate counter point.

This is the first time I have felt strongly enough to post anything anywhere about wow on the net. I assume the post will be met with taunts such as ‘don’t like it dont play’, trolling, vitriol or worse still just get voted out of existence.

However I enjoy the cathartic nature of wow. I like this website and appreciate the people who take the time to post and add to it to make my gaming experience more enjoyable.

Apologize for how long this post is however this is something that I and my friends who play wow have been uncomfortable with since encountering wotlk and am glad this is being discussed on a community forum.

Thanks guys.

Comment by Gwiez

I find three parts or this quest disturbing, none of them are the violence. 1) torture is the only way to find Lady Evanor, when I just passed her prison out in the field. 2) the wizard pays someone else to torture his prisoner so he can pretend he didn't do it, 3) when torture isn't working, you torture more and it works, which is kind of not accurate.

And I'm not looking for World of Cuddlecraft. Stealing wolvar babies has got to be the most satisfyingly evil quest, but I don't think there's an underlying message that stealing babies is ok.

I mean seriously, out of all the prison boxes, there's one that isn't empty. I wonder who's in it. Instead of opening it, let's torture some random person you found nearby and see if they know where the prisoner is.

Comment by childofnewlight

Wow...I never thought a discussion like THIS would arise. I mean, I'm usually one of the more sensitive of players. I flinched as I did some of the DK starting quests and what not and have skipped some of the Apothecary quests back in Hillsbrad because I wasn't too fond of poisoning people...but in all honesty I found this quest FUN. Call me twisted, but the second time I did this quest I let my younger brother sit there and click the poker.

I mean seriously. Its not even graphic. The guy sits in a chair and spews off a few cheesy lines. And now you think this is a protest or support of torture? Its a game folks. I usually don't say that because I know in times past its #$%^ed me off...but really ITS A GAME.

Heck, I went up stairs and acquired a second poster from the vendor up there and poked him a few more times just for kicks.

I dare say, there aren't going to be many, if any kids walking away from this chaining their pet gerbils to chairs and stabbing them with curling irons until they speak. and I doubt many people are going to call their representatives up and say "Hey. The Kirin'Tor used torture. We should too!"

I mean really. Do you realize how many hundreds of thousands of people and animals you've killed to get to this point? How many of them ran in fear and yet you still chased them down and killed them? How many level 6 defias have you used to level up your new weapons? How many times have you ran through Wailing Caverns letting off wave after wave of AoE to clear cut mobs for a guildie?

Were you tortured via a magical poker as a child? :(

Honestly its fun. Why? Because its unrealistic. Just like Elmer Fudd getting the living daylights beaten out of him repeatedly by Bugs Bunny is amusing. Its not real. Its a release. Its amusing in an animated sense. Most people can separate the difference between pixels and real living beings.

Seriously, if you're complaining about this look at your skillbar. Think about how painful it'd be to have someone use rend on you, or set you on fire with immolate, or chuck massive bolts of frost at you, or kidney shot you, or maul your face off in bear form, or...you get the point.

Now imagine the hundreds of thousands of humanoids you've killed in various fashions for the last 70+ levels...

Maybe this isn't the game for you?

Comment by Novawolf

Rofl, these comments are ridiculous.

To 'garrote' someone means to drag a sharp or barbed wire across someone's throat and incur heavy bleeding or death.

So no major plot lines, hubs or other character gimping will result from avoiding the torturing if you don't want to do it. And I think you can still complete the area quest achievements skipping these too.

Comment by indokid

I particularly found amusing the fact that the Neural Needler has "Made in Dalaran" written on it.

The Kirin Tor are supposedly "bound to a code of conduct" that frowns upon torture but you as an "outsider" are not bound to such restrictions and can thus do the dirty work for him - yet the instrument of torture was made in their very own city.

/facepalm

Comment by deathmac

I'm pretty sure there is mention of a Neural Needler in the Novel - Beyond the Dark Portal. Been a while since I read the book but I rememebered the part instantly when i did this quest. Something about Khadgar trying to ask a felorc for information but the fel orc just sat there grinning taunting him to torture , so Khadgar reluctantly resorted to the needler which, in the end worked.

Someone correct me if i got any of this wrong >.> if i remember i will pull the book out and put it word for word.

Comment by mayoff

Comment by Guanyin

Why was I grinning all the time while doing this quest?guess I really am a sadistic bastard :p

Comment by Jerodast

Is this quest and the followups necessary to get the Tundra achievement? As a sporadic RPer it would be somewhat amusing to refuse to do this quest on ethical grounds :)

Comment by karti

the ethic implications of this quest were what made me hesitate - i did complete it, but was wondering about:A - what was blizz thinking when doing the quest? trying to take away some of the horror we have when thinking about torture? making us hesitate and think about our opinion to torture? just doing a new kind of quest without thinking about ethics whatsoever?B - what are other players thinking about the quest?

at least for B im pleased to see people dont just mindlessly do what they are told to in this game.maybe they wont in real-life neither :)

Comment by Lamayan

Look, do you want the experience or not?

Comment by WitherVoice

This is one of two quests in the game that have given me pause. The other one is... hmm... Seeping Corruption.

Now, when working with the Forsaken this stuff seems to be par for the course... and all in all I'm OK with it. And the morality of the act of completing this quest in and of itself is also no concern of mine. However, it still makes me uncomfortable that it presents torture as useful for non-propaganda purposes. Torture is worthless for producing actionable intelligence; it is useful for producing lies. Making someone lie is extremely useful, so torture is not worthless, but this right here is akin to taking a perfectly useful saw and using it to hammer in nails with. Wrong tool for the job.

Comment by Chiakiakito

Just wanted to add something for the hell of it.

I play on an RP server and my character is a Holy priestess. It felt absolutely wrong to do this, even when I wasn't really rping her. This quest makes you feel ten times crueller than killing countless mobs...

Comment by pagusa

I don't know i just felt bad for this guy :(

Comment by zillah975

I want the option of attacking the quest giver and using the needler on him and his friend.

Dropping this quest. No way am I completing it. It may be "just a game" filled with fantasy violence, but torture isn't "fantasy violence", it's something that happens in the real world right now, and it doesn't feel right to complete it. Each to his or her own, but I ain't doing it.

Comment by aroihkin

This quest made my Death Knight happy in his dark little heart. <3

Let's just say he was... thorough. Very, very thorough.

Edit: Discuss your character being upset (or yourself being upset) at this quest = upvote. Different take on it = downvote. Color me amused.

Comment by MiltiadesBooga

Considering the inquisition witch trials that took place here on da Erf, and the historial treatment of mages in Warcraft, I'm kind of wryly amused at these wizards acting like inquisitors.

I'm not sure if that counts as ironic or not. Damn you, Alanis Morrisette.

Comment by Lilkai

"Inflicts incredible pain to target, but does no permanent damage" and You call it "The Art of Persuasion" ?

Sickest.Quest.Ever.

Comment by cynisca

The Kirin Tor won't torture people... but they'll look away while you do it? And you use an interrogation instrument that was made in Dalaran? Intense!

Of course, as many people have pointed out, we do all sorts of horrid things in WoW. But I actually thought this was pretty grimdark because it's the Kirin Tor, you know? It definitely gives some insight into an organisation that seems rather principled otherwise.

Makes you wonder what happened to Kael and co. in the dungeons of Dalaran...

Comment by Mythdefied

This seriously disturbed me. I know, game and all, but I have a moral problem with this quest. It's the first one to make me actively uncomfortable instead of just grossed out or queasy.

Comment by homiebrah

This is a game. We kill things because we want what they have. Personally, I think the prisoner should have been waterboarded, but I'm undead, so no biggie.

Odd that the prisoner is supposed to be in the chair by the quest giver, but he wasn't sitting in it at all. Still used the device on the empty chair and it worked.

Comment by Everdreamer

I don't know why there's no comment in this page mentioned this Prototype Neural Needler, which is sold upstairs, providing a way to continue the fun (if you feel so) after you complete this quest.